 | iRobots Sell, But Who's Buying?  Someone must be using them, I guess. Otherwise, why would Naval Sea Systems Command buy another $26 million worth of iRobot's explosive-disposal machines? But I've never met a bomb squad technician who actually bothered with one of the things. Too flimsy, they all say. Too hard to operate.
The Baghdad Bomb Squad used their iRobots to decorate their shop. Not far away, at the U.S. military's central robot depot for Iraq, the iRobots sat on shelves, serenely gathering dust, while Foster-Miller's Talon robots would come back, scarred and in pieces, after being chewed up by a bomb. Foster-Miller, though, doesn't have the PR megaphone that iRobot does. It doesn't have a cute, little household machine to go along with its battlefield models. And when you go to military trade shows, you only see Foster-Miller sporadically. iRobot always seems to have a booth. Maybe there's a connection, somewhere in there, to that big sale? (Big ups: JQP) UPDATE 1:50 PM: Of course. I shoulda figured. "Sen. John Kerry Visits iRobot to Congratulate Company on $26 Million U.S. Navy Contract." Everybody is E.O.D. A shortage of Explosive Ordnance Disposal experts in Iraq means that engineers and infantry often end up tackling Improvised Explosive Devices themselves.  New equipment including tougher vehicles and simple ground robots make this possible, as I explain in an article in the April National Defense Magazine:
Armored vehicles originally designed to clear mines are used to sweep roads of bombs. Patrols travel inside the protective bubbles of sophisticated radio jammers that intercept the signals that detonate explosives. And engineers are refining the use of small ground robots to identify and destroy IEDs. Read the entire article here. -- David Axe UPDATE 9:49 AM: Noah here. As you can imagine, the guys who spend a year training to become bomb squad technicians aren't exactly thrilled by the newbies who think they handle their jobs, just because of a few new toys. This isn't just a matter of guarding turf (although there is some of that, for sure). There's a pretty major safety issue involved here, too. Quick example: a group of combat engineers near Baghdad were all fired up about their new, bomb-grabbing Buffalo armored vehicle, which they used to sift through roadside junk piles for IEDs. These guys would dig up an explosive with the Buffalo's spindly claw. And then, they'd be so proud of what they found, they'd want to snap a quick picture of their prize. So they'd use the claw to bring the bomb right up to the Buffalo's cab. And then, the IED would go off. A bad thing, of course. And the kind of thing that happens when folks aren't properly trained in bomb-handling.  UPDATE 10:07 AM: Of course, being an EOD pro doesn't make you bomb-proof. In an incident I barely missed, UK Captain Peter Norton lost a leg and part of an arm to an IED. Yesterday, he was awarded one of the British military's highest honors, the George Cross. Only 21 others have received it since 1945. His citation reads, in part:
"Captain Norton was the second-in-command of the US Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell (CEXC) based in the outskirts of Baghdad. The unit has been in the forefront of counter Improvised Explosive Device (IED) operations and is plays a vital role in the collection and analysis of weapons intelligence. At 1917 hours on 24 July 2005, a three vehicle patrol from B Company, 2nd Battalion, 121st Regiment of the Georgia National Guard was attacked by a massive command initiated IED in the Al Bayaa district near Baghdad. The ensuing explosion resulted in the complete destruction of a 'Humvee' patrol vehicle and the deaths of four US personnel. Due to the significance of the attack, a team from CEXC, commanded by Captain Norton, was tasked immediately to the scene. On arrival, Captain Norton was faced with a scene of carnage and the inevitable confusion which is present in the aftermath of such an incident. He quickly took charge and ensured the safety of all the coalition forces present. A short while later he was briefed that a possible command wire had been spotted in the vicinity of the explosion site. With a complete understanding of the potential hazard to himself and knowing that the insurgents had used secondary devices before in the particularly dangerous part of Iraq, Captain Norton instructed his team and the US forces present in the area to remain with their vehicle while he alone went forward to confirm whether a command wire IED was present. A short while later, an explosion occurred and Captain Norton sustained a traumatic amputation of his left leg and suffered serious blast and fragmentation injuries to his right leg, arms and lower abdomen. When his team came forward to render first aid, he was conscious, lucid and most concerned regarding their safety. He had correctly deduced that he had stepped on a victim operated IED and there was a high probability that further devices were present. Before allowing them to render first aid, he instructed his team on which areas were safe and where they could move. Despite having sustained grievous injuries he remained in command and coolly directed the follow-up actions. It is typical of the man that he ignored his injuries and regarded the safety of his men a paramount as they administered life saving first aid to him. It is of note that a further device was found less than ten metres away and rendered safe the following day. Captain Norton's prescience and clear orders in the most difficult circumstances undoubtedly prevented further serious injury or loss of life.
(Big ups: JQP, LB) I.E.D. Task Force's Growing Pains Tomorrow's Newsweek has a recap of the IED threat in Iraq that's well worth a read. Most of the elements of Michael Hastings' story will be familiar to regular Defense Tech readers: the article opens with Capt. Greg Hirschey, the head of the Baghdad Bomb Squad, moves quickly to the tragic passing of Staff Sgt. Johnnie Mason, and then goes on to cover Warlock jammers, shaped charges, infrared triggers, and the like. But there are a few, choice, behind-the-scenes tidbits, on the creation of the Pentagon's Joint IED Task Force, that I haven't seen anywhere before: 
The civilian leadership of DoD agreed and let it be known that money would be no obstacle. A new Joint IED Task Force was duly convened under Army leadership—and immediately bogged down in bureaucracy. The first meeting was chaired by an Army two-star general and attended by a Navy two-star admiral, many one-star Army and Air Force generals, and "more colonels than you could count," according to a participant who requested anonymity because he was discussing a secret meeting. About an hour and a half was spent discussing the transfer to the Army of four bomb-sniffing dogs belonging to the Air Force. The cost of flying the dogs to Iraq was $35,000, but "at the end of that time, there was not a soul in the room who could say, 'I will give you the money'," a participant recalled. It was a harbinger. "We were hamstrung from the beginning by an inability to actually do anything," said another participant in the meeting. (Pentagon spokesman Whitman says that "our efforts against IEDs grew as the threat grew.") Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was frustrated by the slow progress, according to a knowledgeable official who requested anonymity because he was divulging sensitive matters. Wolfowitz hoped to use interservice rivalry to spur some competition. The Air Force had begun a "Project Eyes" to fly a plane, equipped with sensors, over Iraq looking for buried munitions. The equipment was sensitive—it kept overheating over the desert, forcing the plane to retreat to cooler altitudes—but it showed that hidden caches could be found. Wolfowitz was so fed up with what he saw as the Army's inertia that he asked Air Force Secretary James Roche to brief the rival branch. "Paul wanted to shame the Army into action," says an official involved in the operation who declined to be identified.
UPDATE 03/20/06 2:12 PM: If you squint really, rrrrreeeealllly hard, you can see this site cited in the print edition of the Newsweek story. The Enemy is Me Last summer, a U.S. Colonel in Baghdad told me that I was America's enemy, or very close to it. For months, I had been covering the U.S. military's efforts to deal with the threat of IEDs, improvised explosive devices. And my writing, he told me, was going too far -- especially this January 2005 Wired News story, in which I described some of the Pentagon's more exotic attempts to counter these bombs.  None of the material in the story -- the stuff about microwave blasters or radio frequency jammers -- was classified, he admitted. Most of it had been taken from open source materials. And many of the systems were years and years from being fielded. But by bundling it all together, I was doing a "world class job of doing the enemy's research for him, for free." So watch your step, he said, as I went back to my ride-alongs with the Baghdad Bomb Squad -- the American soldiers defusing IEDs in the area.
Today, I hear that the President and the Pentagon's higher-ups are trotting out the same argument. "News coverage of this topic has provided a rich source of information for the enemy, and we inadvertently contribute to our enemies' collection efforts through our responses to media interest," states a draft Defense Department memo, obtained by Inside Defense. "Individual pieces of information, though possibly insignificant taken alone, when aggregated provide robust information about our capabilities and weaknesses." In other words, Al Qaeda hasn't discovered how to Google, yet. Don't help 'em out. This was taken to ridiculous extremes yesterday by President Bush, who said: Earlier this year, a newspaper published details of a new anti-IED technology that was being developed. Within five days of the publication -- using details from that article -- the enemy had posted instructions for defeating this new technology on the Internet. We cannot let the enemy know how we're working to defeat him.
Folks, that doesn't pass the laugh test. This technology, Ionatron's Joint IED Neutralizer, hasn't even been shipped to the field -- and may never get there. So insurgents are posting instructions on how to beat a device that they've never seen? Based on a few, vague paragraphs in the L.A. Times? Yeah, right. After years of relatively small investments, the U.S. is spending several billion dollars of our public money to try to stop roadside bombs. 40 American soldiers are dying every month, because of these IEDs. The public has a right to know how that money is being spent, and how those soldiers are being protected. Period. And this attempt to demonize the media for handmade bombs is just a way to keep folks from asking why more wasn't done sooner to deal with the IED threat. Does that mean there shouldn't be any secrets in the anti-IED world? Of course not. Operational specifics about key counter-bomb technologies and tactics should be tightly held; otherwise, soldiers can get killed. That's why I kept such details out of my Baghdad Bomb Squad story. That's why David Axe has done the same on his many Iraq trips. But there's a huge difference between disclosing key details, and not allowing any information out whatsoever about the Iraq war's most important fight. Now, who's the one crossing the line? I.E.D. Answer: New Roads? I've spoken to a couple of company commanders in Iraq who say they don't have much of a problem with roadside bombs. The big reason why: they avoid the main streets in their neighborhoods, travelling where their enemies aren't.  Now, the Pentagon is looking to use that technique all over Iraq, according to Inside Defense. "Rather than trying to defeat improvised explosive devices (IEDs) head-on with new technologies and tactics, the Defense Department is looking to... construct new roads for supply convoys that simply bypass densely populated, high-threat areas."
The Army is seeking $167 million in military construction funds as part of the Pentagon's soon-to-be detailed $65.3 billion supplemental spending request for fiscal year 2006 to pave roads capable of supporting two-way traffic, complete with shoulders, drainage structures and interchanges to connect with existing supply routes, according to a draft version of the request. “Failure to provide these routes will result in continued exposure of U.S. and coalition forces as well as Iraqi non-combatants to unacceptable insurgent threats to include IED and vehicle borne IED and direct fire exposure,” states the draft budget document obtained by InsideDefense.com and set to be delivered to Congress soon.... There have been approximately 28,000 IED incidents in Iraq between April 2003 and November 2005, according to Jan. 24 briefing slides prepared by Multi-National Force-Iraq.
Iraq, Behind the Bombs We read all the time about the American military effort to stop handmade bombs in Iraq. But we don't know much about the insurgents who build and plant them. Greg Grant, who just got back from Iraq, has one of the most detailed looks yet into the IED supply chain. Here's a snippet. But be sure to read the whole story, in this month's Defense Technology International. 
According to U.S. military intelligence, more than 100 cells operate in Iraq. Most limit attacks to roadways and neighborhoods near where the cell members live. Cells advertise their technical skills on the Internet, posting streaming video of IED attacks to jihadist web sites. The most highly skilled IED cells operate as a package and hire themselves out to the larger insurgent networks on a contract basis, changing affiliations for more money. While ideology motivates many guerrilla fighters in Iraq, some officers believe the financial motivation behind insurgent attacks has been underestimated. “You get a disaffected guy who is making $100 a month and you tell him go place this IED and I’ll give you $300, and if you blow something up we’ll give you a $700 bonus, and that’s a pretty dramatic reward,” says Army Lt. Col. Shawn Weed, a military intelligence officer in Baghdad… “Payday is the beginning of the month,” says Army Lt. Col. Ross Brown, who commands a cavalry squadron in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3ACR) operating south of Baghdad. “We can track it on a calendar; he’s buying IEDs on this date, then he’s building them, now he’s putting them out on the roads, then they’re blowing up and then he’s out of money and munitions and he starts over...” Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was saturated with weapons plants and munitions depots. U.S. intelligence indicates that after the regime fell, former officials moved large quantities of munitions into pre-selected caches, many south of Baghdad, from which insurgents draw explosives for IEDs. Army Capt. Ben Crombe, an intelligence officer in 3ACR, says there is a single supplier for many of these cells. The suppliers provide explosive material to locations across the capital. Components are assembled at well-concealed bomb factories and moved from areas likely to be searched by American patrols to holding areas until the device is emplaced. Because of the frequency of U.S. raids on suspected insurgent hideouts, IEDs are kept in what the military calls “rolling weapons caches”— cars with false bottoms or trunks loaded with explosives that blend in with the thousands of vehicles on Iraq’s crowded city streets. Individual cells have a specific signature and follow a pattern, Funk says, such as the time of day they carry out IED attacks and where they place bombs, while different cells have access to different types and sizes of munitions. Most of the bombs are unique in construction because the bomb maker is forced to use materials at hand.
IED Answer: Foot Patrols? Everybody seems to have an answer to the homemade bomb problem: more cargo flights, more radio frequency jammers, even explosive-spotting lasers.  This story in the current Atlantic has a solution I hadn't seen before. The idea, from Gen. Joseph Votel, who headed the IED task force until recently, is to have troops stop riding through Baghdad or Ramadi on Humvees, and start walking the streets.
The growing use of IEDs is forcing America's military strategists to rethink centuries of military doctrine holding that in warfare, mobility equals dominance. Votel told me that given the success that IEDs have had against America's fleet of motor vehicles, the Pentagon may need to switch to more foot patrols. An intelligence analyst working on the IED problem agreed, saying, "The answer to the IEDs is to leave the vehicles. It's obvious. It's the only choice."
Really? I don't know much about infantry tactics. But I do know a soldier who was killed by a jury-rigged bomb. He was one his feet, not in a Humvee. Same goes for the British explosives specialist who lost limbs to an IED. But the vulnerability isn't even the big issue. Coverage is. The Army equivalent on the cop walking the beat works fine, if you've got lots and lots of cops in a very small area. In Iraq, there are 150,000 or so soldiers and marines trying to control a place the size of California. That means each patrol has to cover a really wide area -- too wide, really, to walk. Driving is the only way. Besides, as the Atlantic notes, more foot patrols "would expose U.S. soldiers to other risks, including snipers. And the December detonation of an IED in Fallujah, killing ten Marines on foot patrol, shows that soldiers will remain vulnerable to IEDs whether on foot or behind the wheel." Next... Laugh Off Those Bombs I convoyed to Ramadi with the Army's 46th Engineer Battalion. My driver was a young soldier who'd fought the Mahdi Army in Al Kut two years ago and was back for his second tour. Before SP-ing ("Start Point"), a lieutenant briefed everyone on the latest Improvised Explosive Device threat.  It seems an insurgent cell out here in Al Anbar has been building sophisticated IR tripwire-activated IEDs disguised as rocks and apparently employing shaped-charge warheads -- hardly improvised at all, if you ask me. Three or four of these things have gone off in the last month, inflicting a number of casualties. Normally in a briefing like this the presenter would detail any countermeasures, but this time he just went, "Umm ... " since there are no countermeasures to an IED like that. You can't tell it from another rock and you can't jam it.
This wasn't my first convoy. Nor was it the first time I've heard scary briefings on insurgent super-weapons. Still, I admit I was a little unnerved. But the 46th troopers just grimaced and shrugged. What are you gonna do? We rolled out two hours late due to a broken-down Humvee. It was a two-hour drive to Ramadi, and my driver and his crew passed the time munching Chips Ahoy cookies and joking on the intercom. They run these missions almost every day against an evolving range of threats. There are only so many precautions they can take; after that's it's up to God. "Inshalla," my Arab friends would say: "God willing." The non-believers in the crowd can take comfort in the knowledge that, statistically, they're highly likely to survive any given mission. Still – shaped-charge IEDs disguised as rocks?! --David Axe "Aerial IED," Part Three Are insurgents in Iraq making homemade explosives that can "leap into the air" and hit helicopters? A leading general says yes. The Pentagon's anti-IED (improvised explosive device) task force disagrees. And the Secretary of the Army -- well, he's not quite sure either way.  Now, an intelligence source weighs in, telling Defense Tech that the "aerial IED" threat is all hype -- no matter what the general said. "Honest to God, there hasn't been a single anti-helo IED discovered anywhere in Southwest Asia," the source notes. "The bad guys are so successful at downing them with small arms fire they have no incentive to adopt needlessly complex anti-helo mines or IEDs. There might be one or two out there, but we haven't heard anything about it."
I don't know about you, but I had no one idea there were anti-helicopter mines until this whole flap started. Defense Update helps educate me, with a description of this one Bulgarian-made helo-hunter. There are many others. AHM-200-1... is activated by... acoustic and radar Doppler shift signatures... at a distance of of 100 m... The mine uses two warheads, an explosive formed projectile and augmented by a second TNT bar charge distributing 17kg of steel ball fragments. The mine can be activated for periods up to 30 days. The mine is placed on a stand permitting general orientation of the sensors and charges in the direction of potential threat. The control unit uses a signal processor to process the acoustic signals and determine activation parameters. Activation, neutralization and explosion by Radio control from a range of up to 2,000 meters is optional in model AHM-200-1RC. The mine will explode when attempts for moving, tampering or disassembly during its activation phase.
"Aerial IED" Denied... Kinda, Sorta It's not every day that the Defense Department goes out of its way to say publicly that a general is full of it. But that's what appears to be going on now.  On Monday, Defense News ran a story by Greg Grant which said that "insurgents are attacking U.S. helicopters in Iraq with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that leap into the air and detonate when an aircraft passes nearby."
The source: Brig. Gen. Edward Sinclair, commander of the Army’s Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Ala. Almost immediately, there was pushback to Grant's piece. But not to the substance of what he -- and, by extension, Gen. Sinclair -- said. To the fact that such sensitive info was being disclosed. (That kind of thing tends to happen when you're writing about IEDs. I was accused of being an agent of the Iraqi insurgency for this Wired News article on bomb-stopping technologies.) Now, however, the military is saying those "aerial IEDs" don't exist. That Grant and Gen. Sinclair were basically wrong. “At this time, we do not know of any incidences of insurgents employing aerial IEDs against U.S. helicopters. No aircraft have been lost to this type of device,” a spokeswoman for the Defense Department task force working to defeat IEDs told Stars and Stripes. But that attempt to clarify things was almost instantly muddied by Army Secretary Francis Harvey, in an interview with Voice of America. To my knowledge we, we have not, I don't know if we've seen, we may have seen one of those. But to my knowledge we have not seen a lot of those so far, jumping IEDs.
(Big ups: Haninah Levine) "Aerial IEDs" Target Copters In Iraq, it's not uncommon for Americans to fly from the Green Zone in Baghdad to the military headquarters at Camp Victory, just a few miles away. That's the danger handmade bombs along the road represent.  So insurgents are altering their strikes, "attacking U.S. helicopters in Iraq with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that leap into the air and detonate when an aircraft passes nearby," writes Defense News' Greg Grant, who just returned from Iraq.
Insurgents, who place these aerial IEDs along known flight paths, trigger them when American helicopters come along at the typical altitude of just above the rooftops. The devices shoot 50 feet into the air, and a proximity fuze touches off a warhead that sprays metal fragments, said Brig. Gen. Edward Sinclair, commander of the Army’s Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Ala. The bomb-builders may be obtaining radio-guided proximity fuzes from old Iraqi anti-aircraft and artillery shells and mortar rounds. Sinclair said these aerial IEDs have been used against multiple U.S. helicopters. He declined to say whether such IEDs had damaged any aircraft. The new weapon is one way insurgents are taking on Army aircraft, which come under fire between 15 and 20 times a month, Sinclair said. Other methods include small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and advanced shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. “The enemy is adaptive,” Sinclair said. “They make changes in the way they fight; they respond to new flying tactics.”
The AP is reporting that "a U.S. military helicopter crashed north of the Iraqi capital Monday - the third American chopper to go down in 10 days - killing the two crew members. A resident said he saw the smoke trail of a missile before the aircraft plunged to the ground." SSG Johnnie Mason, RIP Staff Sergeant Johnnie Mason was smiling when I met him, a few days after he had dodged death. He was part of an Army bomb squad team in Mahmudiyah, not far from Baghdad. An improvised explosive device, stuffed underneath a set of corpses, detonated just feet away from him in mid-July. Only his kevlar bomb suit -- and a quick duck behind a mound of dirt -- kept him alive.  If Mason was bothered by the experience, he didn't show it. "All I've got is a little short-term memory loss. There are four roads on post -- I keep getting lost," he laughed.
But he had enough wherewithall to get back to work, he promised his commanding officer. Mason eyes grew big, and he cracked a toothy grin, when he got the okay. I shook my head in wonder at Mason's easy-going bravery then. Now, I'm cradling my head in my hand, after getting this message from Sergeant Jon Ferraro, from the "Baghdad Bomb Squad." On 19 December 2005 @ 23:30, my team leader SSG Johnnie V. Mason was killed in the line of duty in Al Mahmudiyah, Iraq. We were working on an IED in the median of a road, when a possible secondary IED was found in our safe area. SSG Johnnie Mason responded immediately to the secondary and took immediate actions on the device. He was trying to safe the device when it detonated...killing him instantly from the explosion (at exactly 23:30). He saved at least 4 soldiers that night who were within feet of the device. SSG Johnnie Mason is a fallen brother. A brother in arms. An EOD brother. A husband to his wife Brook and a father to his 2 step children: Ashley (18) and Adam (16). He will not be forgotten. His loss will not be in vain. He was my team leader. He was my NCO. He was my best friend. He was my brother. I have never gotten so close to someone in such a short time. I first met Johnnie when I got to Ft.Campbell, KY back in January of this year. I found out he was going to be my team leader for Iraq back in March. Ever since then we have been inseparable and we've had a brothers bond. We were Team 8 "Jokers". When we rolled out on an incident, everyone knew who we were. Johnnie was a joker. He's the guy that makes everyone laugh and smile. Everyone liked him or loved him. He was always in a good mood and made the best out of every situation. He was cool under pressure and was an amazing team leader. He taught me alot as a person, as an EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] tech...and soon to be husband. We had fun on every incident we ran. We ran safely, as fast as possible, and held high standards as a team. Everywhere we went on post, someone would say hey to Johnnie from the lowest ranking private to the Brigade Commander. Everyone knew him. I ask that everyone take a moment of silence and pray for his family and friends during this horrible time. I ask God to keep them strong and safe during this time of Christmas. I ask that you forward this to all the EOD techs you know and the friends and loved ones of his. Thank you and God bless, SGT Jonathan M. Ferraro
717th Ordnance Company (EOD)
UPDATE 12/22 8:52 AM: More on Johnnie here and here. If you're interested in sending condolences or flowers, e-mail me. UPDATE 12/25 11:46 AM: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has some choice snippets of Johnnie's battlefield humor. And the Ft. Worth Star Telegram hangs out with Johnnie's Dad. Bomb Squad Story, Blown From the AP and NPR reports, you'd think that the the big deal about the military's revamped IED training course was new, mock buildings that the government put up for the class. You'd be wrong.  I went down to the military's bomb squad school over the summer, while those buildings were being constructed. (Here's a picture, right) I talked to the guys who are running the IED program. The new structures are the least important part of the change that's going on in bomb squad training. Think of it like the movies: The scenery matters, sure. But what really counts is the acting, and the plot. Here's what I wrote about the school for Wired:
When [a bomb technician] was deployed to the Balkans in the late 1990s, his main task was to sweep unexploded ordnance from battlefields and firing ranges once the action was over. He followed a cold war playbook - when to get the tools out, when to just blow something up. But that playbook only works when you're up against mass-produced bombs. Guerrillas in Iraq cobble together weapons from whatever they can find. A bombmaker in Mosul might use dynamite and a timer from a washing machine. One in Baghdad lashes artillery shells to a motorcycle battery and a cordless telephone. Insurgent cells swap tactics on Web sites, and when American forces catch on, the terrorists move to newer tactics... The ever-shifting conflict is forcing bomb squads to develop new, more improvisational tactics. On the red clay ranges of the military's EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] school in Niceville, Florida, Marine gunnery sergeant Eric Slachter teaches the next generation of bomb-disposal troops. His syllabus: There is no syllabus. "The basic classes here, they're all about following procedure. This is an advanced course - you think on your feet. You've got a brain, some experience. Now use it," he says. "We'll take it from the headlines, what killed a GI. We'll make that device. And we'll learn to defeat it."
Not too long ago, IEDs were treated as almost an afterthought during explosives training. They were the pipe bombs that 16 year-olds left in school libraries -- kid's stuff, really. Real men handled roomfuls of grenades, or thousand-pound building-killers. Some of the feaux-buildings at Eglin reflect that history. There's a mock library there, in fact, with books and everything. But that's a relic of the past, not a pointer to the future. Which is why it's particularly silly for the press to focus in on it. (Full disclosure: NPR's Phillip Davis interviewed me for his story on the IED school. I tried to tell him all this. But I didn't make it into his piece. Some might say, then, that this post is sour grapes. But really, I'm just sour about the point of the story being missed.) Troops Get New Jammers One of the few reliable methods the U.S. military has for stopping improvised bombs are radio frequency jammers, which stop the bombs from being remotely triggered.  I've mentioned the jammers -- specifically, the Warlock family of jammers -- a whole bunch of times on the site. But there are others, too. Raytheon, for example, just got another $15.5 million for its IED Countermeasure Equipment ("ICE") systems. If I'm doing the math right -- always a questionable proposition -- that means another 1200-1300 jammers for the troops.
Back in April, Copley News Service notes, Lt. Gen. James Mattis told Congress that "the Marines are sending 1,066 of the new devices to Iraq and plan to buy another 2,500. The Army is purchasing 3,000." In August, the Joint IED Defeat Task Force shifted "$48 million to buy 6,246 [ICE] kits," according to Inside the Army. "The device is about the size of a large gym bag," the El Paso Times noted in August. It is a rectangular metal box with switches, fans and connectors on its face and sides. It takes about 15 minutes to install in a vehicle and it runs off the vehicle's power system.... The ICE device can be programmed from a laptop in the field, and it was designed with space inside the chassis for new equipment. The electronics are modular and easily replaced in the field. The simple design also makes it relatively cheap to manufacture.
Really cheap. "At $12,000 each, [ICE] is one-third the price of the Warlock device," Copley notes. Which is one reason so many are being sent into the field. But while the jammers are useful tools, they can't guarantee soldiers and marines' safety. Far from it. In a little more than a month, at least three marine bomb squad members have been killed by IEDs -- a huge loss for a community that's only a few hundred people big. It's safe to assume that all three had some sort of jammer. But the bombs that killed them, I'm told, were triggered by motion-detectors. No radio frequency jammer in the world could have stopped them from going off. Pentagon Skimps on IED Defense?  It certainly sounds big league: tens of millions of dollars and the promise of a modern-day "Manhattan Project" to figure out how to stop improvised bombs. And the need couldn't be greater, of course; just on Saturday, another six soldiers and marines were killed in Iraq by jury-rigged explosives.
But is the Pentagon really doing all it can to stop the weapons responsible for more than half of the war's 17,000 American casualties? It sure doesn't seem that way. Consider this story, from Defense Technology International. The 1940s Manhattan Project is estimated to have cost $20 billion. In Fiscal 2006, the Navy plans to spend just $15 million within ONR [Office of Naval Research] on its new drive, with another $15 million to be spread among the Navy's five affiliated research centers: Pennsylvania State University, Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, and the universities of Texas, Washington and Hawaii. [The Navy recently became the quarterback for counter-bomb research -- ed.] Another $15 million may be allocated to other universities outside the affiliate network.
Keep in mind, the Pentagon's fringe-science arm is planning to spend $38 million next year on giant blimp research, and $200 million on "cognitive" computers. So $45 million isn't all that much, in Pentagon terms. "When admirals start talking about 'Manhattan Projects,' do you know how much money was spent on that?" John Anderson, a chemical engineer and provost of Ohio's Case Western Reserve University, asks. "You can't have a Manhattan-Project result with a tin-cup donation... If you're going to influence the academic research environment, you have to provide some resources and a compelling reason for doing it."
 Of course, it'd be easier to ponying up the big bucks if there was some technological "silver bullet," some magic solution, that could instantly neuter improvised explosive devices -- or least make them easier to find. There ain't. Which is why the Pentagon is shifting its counter-bomb research "away from short-term solutions toward more basic research," the magazine notes. After several open calls to industry and hundreds of proposals, the task force already has picked most of the "low-hanging fruit," according to the group's acting technology director... Proposals are becoming repetitive, he says, particularly in the fields of ballistic protection and IED signal jamming, areas where the task force has placed the most emphasis so far.
But, even with these proven technologies, it's hard not to get the feeling that bomb-stopping isn't anywhere close to the top of the Pentagon priority list. Yes, an extra $250 million was sent over to the Joint IED Defeat Task Force in October, to buy more jammers. I assume that's on top of the agency's $1.2 billion per year budget. But even with all that extra cash, only a slim minority of American troops on the ground -- less than 15%, I'd estimate -- will get the jammers, which are one of the few proven methods for actually keeping the bombs from going off. And remember: getting these jammers to frontline troops helps in the war after Iraq, too. If IEDs continue to be this effective, you can bet, for the next decade or two, guerilla groups will start jury-rigging some bombs as soon as U.S. land. Meanwhile, there's talk at the Pentagon of trying to pare back its new destroyer program, aimed at fighting the Chinese one day. The hope is to maybe bring the costs down to a mere $2 billion per ship. Research and development funding for the Missile Defense Agency remains strong, however, at an annual clip of $8.8 billion. Should we therefore assume that the Pentagon thinks a possible ICBM attack is eight times more important than the roadside bombs that are killing our troops today? Iraq Airwaves: Traffic Jam Every once in a while around Baghdad, American bomb squads stop what they're doing, and retire to their bunks. The reason why: "Compass Call," a modified C-130 turboprop plane which serves as the "only US wide-area offensive information warfare platform," according to GlobalSecurity.org. The Compass Call and the Navy's EA-6B Prowler can jam radio and cell phone traffic for miles around, disrupting insurgent communications. But the aircraft also can disrupt the jammers that bomb squads use to stop improvised explosives, Aviation Week notes. There's even a fear that all those crossed signals could accidentally detonate guerilla bombs. 
"We have a smart system that jams IEDs [improvised explosive devices] in Iraq, that found itself fighting with another smart electronic system," Lt. Gen. Walter Buchanan, chief of the 9th Air Force and Central Command Air Forces, says. "They got locked on [to each other] because of the lack of coordination..." Another concern is accidentally triggering IEDs with jamming signals. "We deconflict our jamming activities when we know we have people near IEDs... so that we don't unintentionally set them off," he says. The problems also extend to surveillance and communications systems. "When you take a look at data links and the number of jammers in place and all the radios we have out there, [deconflicting] becomes a very difficult problem," Buchanan says. Because all of the communication systems are in similar bands and create interference, a Predator UAV at Balad, the main U.S. air base in Iraq, is in danger of losing its ground control link once it is 35 mi. from base, he says. In the less congested airways of Afghanistan, that range is 120 mi.
"The problem is bad enough that Central Command is putting more urgency into developing an EW [Electronic Warfare] Coordination Cell," the magazine observes. "The task is critical because new users of the electromagnetic spectrum come into theater almost daily." Like the next wave of Prowler planes, for example. They'll come equipped with an ALQ-218 electronic attack system designed to "turn those enemy wireless communications into a weapon against the insurgents who use them," Aviation Week says. Before the end of the decade, information warfare specialists are expected to use these and other electronic warfare aircraft, both manned and unmanned, to find enemy communications networks and plot with precision their location on the ground. Those networks would then be seeded with false information as well as viruses, worms, zombies, Trojan Horses and other computer attack tools that would leave them communicating with U.S. analysts as often as they do with other insurgents.
Upgrade for IED Task Force? Guys in uniform bitch a lot. Especially when two military groups are tackling related jobs. Handling bombs is no different. The Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) guys think the engineers are constantly interfering in their work. The engineers say the EOD dudes are snobby and too secret squirrel for their own good.  But, around Baghdad at least, the group causing the most friction seems to be the Pentagon's "Joint IED Defeat Task Force." While EOD techs have to scrounge around to buy their own belts, the Task Force has a billion dollar budget. And while bomb squadders spend a year in training, I saw completely green members of the Task Force wandering around bomb sites, picking stuff up at random. The engineers and the EOD techs took bets on whether or not they'd survive their tours of duty.
Not that the Task Force folks had much nice to say about the bomb squads. "EOD has it pretty easy," one member told me. For most soldiers in Iraq, the Task Force's main contribution was "5-and-25." It's a mantra which means that soldiers should check 5 meters around their vehicles when they first get out, and then do a 25 meter sweep after that. Behind the scenes, and back in the States, the Task Force is also doing a bunch of technology development to try and slow down the seemingly-endless waves of improvised bombs hitting American forces. Several Task Force members have compared the effort to the Manhattan Project. But with the number of explosives on the rise, there's grumbling in Washington that the Task Force doesnt have the juice or the budget to justify the comparison, the L.A. Times notes. There's talk of replacing the Task Force, currently headed by a one-star general, with a new group that would have "an active-duty three-star general or admiral, or a retired four-star officer." Some military officials complain that the Pentagon has made little progress in getting the White House to pressure agencies such as the CIA, FBI and Department of Energy to devote more resources and full-time personnel to the anti-IED effort. One difficulty they cite is that a one-star general tends to wield little influence in the government hierarchy. "It's just amazing how long it takes for the bureaucracy to seriously tackle an issue, when some things should happen lickety-split," said a second senior Defense official.
THERE'S MORE: It's Friday, and I'm feeling punchy and reckless. So here's a pic of me trying to handle an IED leftover. Inside the "Baghdad Bomb Squad"  After months of preparation, and three weeks in a warzone, my entire trip to Iraq has been boiled down to 29 hours. But that day-and-a-smidge shift with “Team Mayhem,” a U.S. Army bomb squad, winds up being pretty damn action-packed.
Booby traps, smoking mortars, rooftop gunfire, suspected truck bombs, roadside explosives, and an idiosyncratic little robot named “Rainman” all figure prominently in the story, which appears in this month’s Wired magazine. Mostly, though, the article is about the battle of wits that’s being fought between high-tech U.S. military squads and low-tech insurgent bombers. Improvised explosives have become the deadliest threat to soldiers and civilians alike in Iraq. So the winner of this fight largely determines the fate of the counterinsurgency. But getting a clear picture of this tangle has been tough; military bomb squads, or "explosive ordnance disposal" units, are ordinarily shrouded in secrecy, operating in shadows. This is one of the first times they’ve allowed a reporter in for an extended stay. So click here for a look inside “The Baghdad Bomb Squad.” Once you’re done, you can take a look at 140 pictures I shot during my time in Iraq. And here are some reports on American troops’ morale, and my online diaries from Iraq. Enjoy… THERE'S MORE: Capt. Greg Hirschey, the commanding officer of the 717th Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Company (which inlcludes Team Mayhem), just dropped me a line. Two of his sergeants, he said, "were hit with an IED yesterday with injuries to their security element. I just walked into the shop from an incident and received word that our Air Force augmentation team was hit with an IED just minutes ago... It is hectic right now once again. Seems like it never stops. Here is a photo of my shot from this morn." New Iraqi Threat: Pressure Bombs "Until recently, most roadside explosives in [Iraq] were triggered remotely by an insurgent using a cellphone, doorbell or other wireless device," USA Today notes.  But U.S. forces have picked up more and more radio frequency jammers to keep the bombs from going off. And so the insurgents are switching gears.
"The new weapon out there is the pressure-detonated IED," Col. Steven Salazar, commander of the Army's 3rd Brigade Combat Team, warned company commanders during a recent battle briefing. "It's a very dangerous tactic..." Pressure-switch bombs [do they mean landmines? -- ed.] aren't entirely new. They have been used, on and off, by insurgents as far back as fall 2003, says Maj. Dean Wollan, intelligence officer of the 3rd Brigade. They still are commonly found in Ramadi, Fallujah and Baghdad. In the Baqouba area north of Baghdad, insurgents had abandoned the use of pressure-triggered bombs this spring after U.S. and Iraqi forces discovered eight of the devices before they could be detonated. The bombs were poorly assembled, Wollan said. The re-emergence of pressure-activated bombs has come as insurgents have acquired more expertise in building and placing them. "These guys either received additional training, or new personnel has moved in to show them how to do it correctly," Wollan said.
I.R.A. Bombs in Iraq Here's the ultimate example of open source warfare: "Eight British soldiers killed during ambushes in Iraq were the victims of a highly sophisticated bomb first used by the IRA," according to The Independent.  The soldiers, who were targeted by insurgents as they travelled through the country, died after being attacked with bombs triggered by infra-red beams...
According to security sources, the technology for the bombs used in the attacks, which were developed using technology from photographic flash units, was employed by the IRA some 15 years ago after Irish terrorists were given advice by British agents. "We are seeing technology in Iraq today that it took the IRA 20 years to develop," said a military intelligence officer with experience in Northern Ireland... The former agent added: "The photographic flashgun unit was replaced with infra-red and then coded infra-red, but basically they were variations of the same device. The technology came from the security forces, but the IRA always shared its equipment and expertise with Farc guerrillas in Colombia, the Basque separatists, ETA and Palestinian groups. There is no doubt in my mind that the technology used to kill our troops in Basra is the same British technology from a decade ago."
(Big ups: Sploid) THERE'S MORE: Be sure to check out Chris Allbritton's on-the-ground report on Iraq's election day. Bomb-Busting Buffalo "A few months ago, spray-painted graffiti began appearing on Baghdad walls," reports Defense News' Greg Grant. "'Kill the Claw,'" it read in Arabic.  The message was aimed at a new vehicle called the Buffalo, a thickly armored mine disposal truck that seeks out and disposes of deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Its 30-foot retractable arm has a camera, to help the operator inside see what he’s doing, and a claw-like rake for finding and detonating the roadside bombs.
The insurgents’ graffiti was not quite the advertising campaign expected by Buffalo manufacturer Force Protection, but it is a testament to how effective the 24-ton vehicle has proven in neutralizing the biggest killer of American troops in Iraq. Since its introduction in late 2003, the Buffalo has become the favorite of U.S. Army combat engineer teams. Grant's right. I spent a fair amount of time with engineer teams in Baghdad this summer, and they all raved about the vehicle. Not just because they were well-protected. But also because the thing had a kick-ass air conditioning system, too. And comfortable seats -- which is important on a 12-hour route clearance shift. However, Grant gets it wrong when he says that "so far, nobody has been injured while riding in one of the vehicles, which have taken repeated IED hits with only minimal damage to exterior components." I talked to several soldiers who had Buffalo-riding buddies injured by the handmade bombs -- and by their own thick skulls. These guys would dig up an explosive with the Buffalo's spindly claw. And then, they'd be so proud of what they found, they'd want to snap a quick picture of their prize. So they'd use the claw to bring the bomb right up to the Buffalo's cab. And then, the IED would go off. X-Ray Van in Action A few weeks back, we talked about the U.S. military's small fleet of specially-equipped vans that can peek inside cars and trucks for explosives. One Defense Tech reader, who worked with an X-ray van, gives us a rundown of how the thing worked:  I used these vans when I deployed with the 1st Cavalry. We were responsible for entry control points to key facilities, like Baghdad Airport. The vans were a tremendous asset, incredibly accurate.
A prime example: Inside one vehicle we scanned was a gentleman who had been shot by insurgents. The little buggers got him seven times, and he somehow survived. He lived at a village near the airport, and went through our check point. We were able to see the metal still in his body, while he was still sitting in his car. The vehicle didn't have to even stop. Another example: A guard for a dignitary forgot to declare his pistol. In the scan, we found it in a small box he had cut into the floor – hidden, just in case insurgents stopped him. Another time, we found a pistol that was hidden in a fender. Yet another was a sword found between the gas tank and the body of a KIA bongo. Once people get screened and discovered, it really does deter them from doing it again. I am sure they tell their friends. One group of guys tried to sneak in small things, like knives and toy pistols. We caught them, they didn't try it again – at least not for a couple of weeks. Finally, they did. And, as luck would have it, we caught them a second time. Bee Mine Bee Mine, Baby Since the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military has used chickens as chemical weapons sensors, dolphins as mine detectors, and armor-wearing dogs as controllers of unruly crowds. And, generally, two-legged soldiers have been grateful for the four-legged and finned assists.  Members of the insect community, however, have been downright pissed. They hate evil-doers just as much as the next genus. And they've been itching to get in on the action.
Luckily, Roland tells us, the little buggers may soon get their chance. Researchers funded by Darpa (of course) are training honey bees to sniff out land mines. Bees... can be trained in a couple of days to pick up the scent of the explosive in the landmine... When released into a minefield, the bees find their way toward the mines... [They] are too small to detect either with the naked eye or high-resolution video at long ranges. So instead, the team employs a laser emitter that sweeps an area like radar or sonar. When the light hits a bee, it reflects, and sensors are able to tell by the reflection just where the bee is. After sweeping several times, the scientists are able to crunch the data and see statistically where the higher occurrences of bees are located. In controlled situations, the method is extremely effective: Bees can detect very small traces of explosive vapors with 97% accuracy and are "wrong" -- that is, passing over a mine without noticing it -- less than 1% of the time.
THERE'S MORE: Animal lovers, be sure to read up on England's chicken-powered nuke, the Navy's plan to give sailors the sharks' electric sensors, one police department's camera-equipped pooch, and another's attempt to put a trained monkey on the SWAT team. AND MORE: Reader DG notes that this "is not a new idea." Back in 1999, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories were training mine-sniffing bees of their own. AND MORE: "This reminds me of a funny quote I saw about the use of dolphins, from an Aussie navy guy working with them in clearing Iraq's Um Qasr harbor," says Defense Tech pal Peter Singer. 'Flipper's fucked, mate. The dolphins have had all this amazing publicity but as soon as they put one in the water it shot through. There's a war going on and Flipper goes AWOL. If you put one to work in Sydney Harbour it would mark a million things because it can't tell the difference between a washing machine and a mine. The bottom line, mate, is it's a fish. It's also a very smart fish so how do you know it hasn't just gone off for a feed instead of working and then thought, 'Hang on, I'd better mark a few things or they won't give me any fish when I get back.'
Phone Bomb Interceptor on the Line? In Iraq, I had knowledgeable folks swear to me that cell phones had never been used to detonate bombs there. Those images we've all seen on CNN -- they're of long-range cordless telephone, not cells. The cell network just isn't reliable enough for a quality-conscious bomber, they say. Since I've been home, I've had other people swear the exact opposite to me.  Either way, New Scientist is right in saying that cells "provide a simple yet effective way for terrorists to remotely trigger a bomb." And that's why it'd be great news if an idea for "a portable device devised by US defence contractor Raytheon [to] quickly identify and disable such weapons" really works out. {Here's a link to the patent.)
The device includes a transmitter that mimics a cell phone base station and a metal horn to concentrate the signal from a 10 milliwatt power source in a single direction. Scanning... a concealed phone... with the tool... tricks it into thinking it is in range of a new network base station and blocks it from any genuine stations in the vicinity. The suspect phone will also respond with a “handshake signal” containing its phone number, allowing a network operator to temporarily disconnect it from the real network, and preventing it from receiving a detonation call. (Big ups: CC) Iran Supplying Iraq's Bombs? On Wednesday, I talked briefly about how Iraqi insurgents' are increasingly using armor-piercing "explosively formed projectiles" to form the deadly hearts of their improvised bombs.  Today, the Times is reporting that "many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs... have been designed in Iran."
The spread of the new weapons seems to suggest a new and unusual area of cooperation between Iranian Shiites and Iraqi Sunnis to drive American forces out - a possibility that the commanders said they could make little sense of given the increasing violence between the sects in Iraq. Unlike the improvised explosive devices devised from Iraq's vast stockpiles of missiles, artillery shells and other arms, the new weapons are specially designed to destroy armored vehicles, military bomb experts say. The bombs feature shaped charges, which penetrate armor by focusing explosive power in a single direction and by firing a metal projectile embedded in the device into the target at high speed. The design is crude but effective if the vehicle's armor plating is struck at the correct angle, the experts said. Since they first began appearing about two months ago, some of these devices have been seized, including one large shipment that was captured last week in northeast Iraq coming from Iran... Pentagon and intelligence officials say that some shipments of the new explosives have contained both components and fully manufactured devices, and may have been spirited into Iraq along the porous Iranian border by the Iranian-backed, anti-Israeli terrorist group Hezbollah, or by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. American commanders say these bombs closely matched those that Hezbollah has used against Israel. "The devices we're seeing now have been machined," said a military official who has access to classified reporting on the insurgents' bomb-making abilities. "There is evidence of some sophistication."
Sneak Peeks at Car Bombs  It's not easy, trying to figure out what's inside a suspicious car or truck. Often, the vehicle has to be searched by hand, putting soldiers right up against a possible car bomb. That's a risk not many are willing to take. Instead, I saw a bunch of trucks around Baghdad (like this one) get torched, just to be sure there weren't any explosives inside. Most of the time, there weren't.
Defense Industry Daily points out a new, less destructive way to make that call. [The] Z Backscatter Van (ZBV) is a low-cost, extremely maneuverable screening system built into a commercially available delivery van. The ZBV employs... Z Backscatter technology, which offers photo-like images that reveal contraband that transmission X-rays miss - such as explosives (including car bombs), people and plastic weapons... [It works] by directing a sweeping beam of X-rays at the object under examination, and then measuring and plotting the intensity of scattered X-rays as a function of the beam position.  Akin to light reflection, Z Backscatter signals are particularly strong whenever the incident X-rays interact with explosives, plastics, and other biological items, which typically contain low Z materials. Even inorganic objects, such as metals, are given shape and form in Z Backscatter images - making them easier to interpret than transmission images during X-ray evaluation.
Eight of the vans are supposed to go to U.S. Central Command, for use in Afghanistan and Iraq. Baghdad's truck drivers can't wait. Big Blast: Why? Of course, the day's worst news is that 14 marines have been killed by a single roadside bomb. That means, in the last ten days, 39 American service members have died in Iraq -- more than in the entire month of March. The attack, also near Haditha, is one of the worst since the American invasion. Usually, such strikes only hurt or kill a few people at a time -- if they wound anyone at all. Taking out 14 people in a single stroke is just about unheard of. It either means the attackers had the devil's odds, timing their blast perfectly. Or, more likely, there was something very different about the explosive used in this strike. While I was in Iraq, I saw several examples of "explosively formed projectiles" -- concave cylinders that shoot out jets of molten metal when they're detonated. Armies have been using them for years as anti-tank weapons. But lately, Iraqi bomb-makers have been fashioning home-made, crude versions of their own. And these improvied explosive devices, or IEDs, have wreaked havoc, sawing through armor and limbs with a terrifying ferrocity. Perhaps that's what happened in Haditha today. I sure hope it was just awful luck. THERE'S MORE: John Robb, decoding a Defense News article I sent his way, unravels the business processes behind the "IED Marketplace." The dogs of war Given Noah's past interest in military dogs, I thought it appropriate to note that the Army, for the first time since 1977, has issued a new field manual on military working dogs -- MWDs, described in the document as "the only living item[s] in the Army supply system."  As the FM notes,the missions for military pooches have changed dramatically over the years. They're now used in everything from warfighting to crowd control and, of course, bomb-sniffing.
But there are probably a few former prisoners in Iraq who'd take issue with this assertion:
The highly aggressive dog tactics of the 1960s and 1970s are long gone.
Hat tip: Steve Aftergood. -- posted by Dan Dupont RC TOYS VS. IEDs How do you handle a roadside bomb, when there's no robot nearby? Simple: you use one of those remote-controlled cars that kids have been playing with for decades.  "Yesterday, I was 'outside the wire,' patrolling with the 2nd Platoon. We came upon a possible IED [improvised explosive device] in the middle of the road, and stopped all traffic to check it out," writes Sgt. Greg Papadatos, of the 69th Infantry Regiment, in a Military.com diary.
A young private [named "E.S."] in that platoon has one of those radio-controlled toy cars. When they find unidentifiable debris in the road, E.S. sends out his little RC car and rams it. If it's light enough to be moved or knocked over, it's too light to be a bomb, so we can approach it and get rid of it. If it's heavy, we call EOD [explosive ordnance disposal -- the military's bomb squad]. At night, they duct tape a flashlight to the car. The military actually has robots that it uses for such things, but they are larger, slower, higher-tech, and frightfully expensive. Only EOD units have them, and you could wait for hours and hours before they show up with their robot. If 200 units read about this idea, and 50 units actually buy a toy RC car, and it saves just one single life, it would all be worth it. I've suggested to E.S. that he put some fancy paint and a couple of LED lights on his toy car, demonstrate it to some Army brass at the Pentagon, and sell it to them for $80,000. He won't actually try that, but it's fun to imagine. In the meantime, I've also suggested to some of his chain of command that they put him in for a commendation or a medal for his ingenuity. If he ever finds a real bomb with that toy car, they probably will. (via the Huffington Post)
ARMY SNAPS UP JAMMERS  For at least six months, military types have been talking up how great Warlock radio frequency jammers have been at stopping roadside bombs in Iraq -- and how few U.S. troops actually had the gagdets.
But the Army is getting wise. Back in December, they beefed up the $4.7 million Warlock budget by $42 million. Yesterday, Army vice chief of staff Gen. Richard Cody announced that the Army is "buying over 8,000 electronic jammers," according to the AFP. The jammers are "no silver bullet" against the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, Cody warned. But still, it's a good move; they've helped contribute to a 40 percent drop in IED casualties, the General said. Let's just hope the purchase doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the New York Times highlighted the Warlock shortage on page A1 a few weeks back. DRONES, LASERS = I.E.D. SPOTTERS There were a couple of anti-IED technologies I didn't get to mention in my recent Wired News piece. One of 'em comes from Navy-funded engineers at Advanced Ceramics Research in Tuscon, Arizona. They're outfitting their Silver Fox unmanned plane with a radio frequency emitter. The signal returns when the wave encounters a detonation wire. And that tips troops off to the fact that an handmade bomb might be nearby.  Dayton, Ohio's Spectra Research is also getting some Navy money to spot the jury-rigged weapons. But the company has a whole different approach to doing it. By using a series of laser flashes over a wide array of the infrared, thermal, and visual wavelengths, the company's technology can -- hopefully -- spot suspicious shapes as they appear on the road.
Similar sensors are often fooled by weather or light conditions. Spectra's is different, promises company president Gordon Little. But by using so many different bands of light, Little thinks his project could lead to "greatly reduced false alarms." But there's a big shortcoming in the technology, Little admits. If an IED is buried in the ground -- and they often are -- Spectra's sensor would be pretty much useless. "Buried objects would not beparticularly accessible to us," he sighs. JAMMERS, MICROWAVE BLASTS TARGET I.E.D.S When U.S. Army Capt. Christopher Sullivan was killed last week by a handmade bomb, it was a tragedy for his family -- and a tragically ordinary event for the American military. Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have been responsible for hundreds of American casualties in Iraq. And so far, there doesn't appear to be any reliable way of stopping them.  The Pentagon, scrambling for answers, is in the middle of a frantic search for high-tech methods to find and neutralize the jury-rigged weapons.
Microwave blasts, radio-frequency jammers and chemical sensors are among the methods being explored and deployed in this largely secret effort. But, because IEDs are cobbled together from "whatever the people that plant them can find," warned Cliff Anderson, a program manager at the Office of Naval Research, "there is no magic bullet" that will suddenly end the IED threat... Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank, believes, the most effective IED countermeasure might be a pulse of electromagnetic energy that can "fry the circuits of these bombs." Researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Dahlgren Laboratory in Virginia are working on such a solution, called NIRF, short for Neutralizing Improvised Explosive Devices with RF. The device, according to a source familiar with the project, "produces a very high-frequency field, in the microwave range, at very short range" to take out an IED's electronics. The Pentagon hopes to deploy NIRF in Iraq later this year. My article in today's Wired News has details. THERE'S MORE: The L.A. Times has a dynamite story today from Al-Ramadi, Iraq, on the dangers facing American convoys there. As he always does before traveling the roadways of Iraq, Marine Staff Sgt. Johnathan Radel on Tuesday said a short prayer. "Lord, please keep us safe today from IEDs and VBIEDS," he said as he sat in his Humvee, using the initials for improvised explosive devices and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices. Less than five minutes later, as the eight-vehicle convoy rolled through the streets of Ramadi in the predawn darkness, an IED exploded beneath one of the Humvees, sending an orange fireball into the sky and shredding the vehicle's back tires.
AND MORE: How does the Army's 3rd Corps Support Command say you should handle IEDs? Read this briefing to find out. TINY METALS, BIG EXPLOSIONS  "Nanotechnology is grabbing headlines for its potential in advancing the life sciences and computing research," Defense Tech pal John Gartner notes in Technology Review. "But the Department of Defense has found another use: a new class of weaponry that uses energy-packed nanometals to create powerful, compact bombs."
Sandia National Laboratories, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are researching how to manipulate the flow of energy within and between molecules, a field known as nanoenergentics, which enables building more lethal weapons such as "cave-buster bombs" that have several times the detonation force of conventional bombs such as the "daisy cutter" or MOAB (mother of all bombs). Researchers can greatly increase the power of weapons by adding materials known as superthermites that combine nanometals such as nanoaluminum with metal oxides such as iron oxide, according to Steven Son, a project leader in the Explosives Science and Technology group at Los Alamos. "The advantage (of using nanometals) is in how fast you can get their energy out," Son says. Son says that the chemical reactions of superthermites are faster and therefore release greater amounts of energy more rapidly. "Superthermites can increase the (chemical) reaction time by a thousand times," Son says, resulting in a very rapid reactive wave. (Thanks to RC for the tip.)
THERE'S MORE: Howard Lovy has the goods on "death by nano." ANOTHER I.E.D. STOPPER? "Two Missouri professors seeking ways to track civilian automobiles for General Motors have discovered a way to detect and conceivably even detonate so-called Improvised Explosive Devices," Soldiers for the Truth says. It sounds a lot like what the Army already has, in its Warlock series of radio frequency jammers.
Simply stated, the scientists have figured out a way to eavesdrop on the ether to detect ambient electronic noise floating around when the mad bombers set up their devices in preparation of setting off an ambush. Both the transmitter the insurgents need to send out a radio signal ordering the detonator to explode and the detonator itself, emit these radio signals. The trick is isolating the unique signals much the same way sonar operators on submarines filter out biologic and machinery noises until they can identify the sounds of the target they are looking for. That radio signal sounds very much like the rapid electronic “beep-beep-beep” emitted by Soviet-era SA-2 acquisition radar... “It would be relatively easy to override these radio receivers if we can recognize them,” Hubing told me last week. “When we identify the receiver, it is possible to prevent an IED from ever receiving the initiation signal.” Hubing said operators using the same equipment could then detonate the IED under a controlled situation where it would not cause any casualties. The technology to create the device already exists. The laboratory where the two scientists do their research possessed enough equipment to make a working theoretical model of the IED detector and present their finding to the Pentagon, Hubing said. Beetner, the other half of the team and the fiscal wizard in the equation, said he thinks it will take about $750,000 and a year of focused attention to field a working prototype.
MORE ON WARLOCK'S TRICKS It's not much. But I've got a leeetle more information on the military's hush-hush defense against improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. The Warlock radio frequency jammers are made by the New York and Simi Valley firm EDO. And they're based on an earlier EDO product called the Shortstop Electronic Protection System, which is designed to protect troops against proximity-fused weapons, like mortar rounds and artillery shells. According to EDO, Shortstop grabs the electronic signal that one of these weapons makes, "modifies the signal and sends it back to the weapon making the fuze think it is close to the ground. The fuze then prematurely detonates the warhead rendering the weapon essentially harmless." The Warlock doesn't do anything quite so dramatic. Instead, "it basically works by intercepting the signal sent from a remote location to the IED instructing it to detonate," an Army official told Inside Defense (which has a wrap-up of all its recent IED stories here.) "The signal 'cannot make contact, therefore when it can’t make contact it doesn’t detonate,' much like a cellular phone call that does not connect, he added. "The cell phone never gets through, but [enemy forces] think it go through." The jammers come in two flavors, each interrupting different frequency bands. Warlock Green connects off of the 24V DC power supply of any military vehicle, an Army document notes. Warlock Red is "designed to connect off the cigarette lighter and/or 12V DC power supply."  THERE'S MORE: "The Army is testing a new method of intercepting improvised explosive devices that relies on an up-armored humvee and two types of vehicles designed in South Africa to withstand blasts from land mines," Inside Defense also notes.
$2.9 million will pay for two "Hunter/Killer" teams, each with an up-armored humvee, an enhanced RG31 Medium Mine Protection vehicle, and a bulldozer-like Buffalo Explosive Ordnance Disposal vehicle, the magazine says. U.S. forces -- including the 82nd Airborne's Task Force Pathfinder -- have been using the vehicles since the beginning of the year. According to an Army public affairs story, soldiers like the RG31 because it's built to withstand a bomb (more on how that's done here) and because it's roomy. "Like riding in an armored Cadillac," one soldier quips. I.E.D.S - WHY THE WHISPERS?  It all seemed pretty straightforward, at first.
I wanted to do some follow-up on a post from a few weeks back, about the U.S. military's efforts to counter improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Those are the roadside bombs which are proving so lethal to American troops in Iraq. A company out of New York, EDO, put out a couple of press releases announcing their $45 million contract with the Army, to make radio frequency jammers that could block the signals triggering the IEDs. Some of the government trade press had followed up, with quick articles on the jammer, called Warlock Green. But despite the semi-public profile, when I asked EDO chief Bill Walkowiak about Warlock Green, he went mute. The Army wouldn't let him talk any more, he said. Anything having to do with IEDs – it was all classified now. And that's a problem, some defense industry insiders are saying. Not whether or not Walkowiak will talk a reporter -- defense contractors clam up all the time, often rightly so. The dark blanket of secrecy that's been thrown over any and all information about these roadside bombs is the issue. "The Pentagon remains tight-lipped about how much money it is spending on a regular basis to counter the threat of such devices and how many troops who need it have access to specialized equipment, such as electronic jammer devices," Inside Defense notes. "Even details on how the enemy builds the IED remain under wraps." Finding and stopping IEDs is a super-hard problem. They don't give off heat, so thermal sensors won't work; they're not made of metal, generally, so magnets are out; they're not unstable, like a chemical agent, so detectors that "sniff" the air haven't done the trick, yet. In fact, the problem is so hard, that all interested researchers and contractors and scientists – not just the ones with security clearance – need to get a whack at IEDs, says John MacGaffin, former associate deputy director for operations at the CIA. “Why is it classified?” he asks Inside Defense. “What is the secret?” MacGaffin, who spent 31 years at the CIA, now runs the AKE Group, which provides training and security in Iraq for major media organizations and industry. He says the only information that should remain classified are the frequencies used by the United States to jam IEDs. He acknowledged that if information on how enemies build IEDs is released, other insurgents could learn how to construct the devices. But there is also a strong likelihood that release of that information will prompt industry to find the solution that will make the weapon less deadly, he says. “What’s more important? Keeping people alive,” MacGaffin told sister publication Inside the Army last week. Not everyone agrees that DOD should be more generous with IED threat data. Defense officials say the protection of such information is vital to ensuring countermeasures will work for as long as possible… “I know there’s a frustration,” Scott Gooch, senior associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, said. [The company] is conducting capabilities assessment work on IEDs for the Joint Staff. But classification issues are nothing new, Gooch noted -- and new ideas are making their way to the Pentagon. In one example, a farmer discovered a material that could withstand explosives and sent it via UPS to the Defense Department.
But doesn’t the farmer example actually argue for more people getting involved in the process – and less secrecy? THERE'S MORE: Shhh! Keep quiet when you're reading Steven Aftergood's Slate story on why airport screeners don't have to tell you what law they're relying on to give you the pat-down. AND MORE: House Armed Services Committee chair Duncan Hunter "is developing a proposal to boost production" of Warlock Green-like jammers, Aerospace Daily says. "The Army plans to buy another 3,300 jammers, a figure that Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) asserted still would leave many U.S. vehicles unprotected against IEDs." I.E.D. DEFENSE - NO LUCK YET  It's priority A1 in America's defense research labs: Coming up with technologies that can spot and defuse the roadside bombs which have proved so deadly to U.S. forces in Iraq.
But so far, Defense News reports, there hasn't been a whole lot of progress made in figuring out how to stop these improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. There's no "single silver bullet out there that can stop this threat," a member of a Pentagon task force on IEDs told the journal. "As we find some solutions that may address a particular type of weapon they’re using, a particular tactic, they shift, find new ways to do things." Meanwhile, IEDs are doing something terrible to American troops. On Monday, an Oregon Army National Guardsman, Spc. David W. Johnson, was killed by an IED near Camp Taji, northwest of Baghdad. "Since the beginning of [Johnson's] battalion's Iraq deployment in April, eight guardsmen have been killed, all by IEDs planted on roads or in vehicles," the AP notes. One of the only effective devices has been the Warlock Green electronic countermeasure system, which "emits a radio frequency that jams communications signals that detonate roadside bombs," according to Federal Computer Week. "The Defense Department, however, has struggled to establish the industrial base for these systems," Defense News notes. "EDO, a New York-based firm specializing in high-tech niche products, was the only company to bid on a $35 million contract to produce 1,000 Warlock systems. And until recently, it was the only company capable of such a task — preventing mass production of the life-saving systems."
Also in the works are “change detector” sensors for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAV program officials are seeking payloads and software that can be added to the service’s fleet of unmanned vehicles to monitor roadways and report any changes back to soldiers. So far, the Army has tested several technologies but has not found one that works well enough to deploy, a top UAV official said this summer. Most UAV technologies can survey areas for changes, but typically are effective in dealing with objects far larger than IEDs.
THERE'S MORE: The Washington Post's Steve Fainaru was almost killed by a roadside bomb in Sadr City yesterday -- an explosion that killed four Iraqi National Guardsmen, but left their American counterparts with only sharpnel wounds. The blast "demonstrated the uneven vulnerability of U.S. forces, who are equipped with the most sophisticated weaponry and armor, and their Iraqi allies, who fight the same battles using vastly inferior equipment," Fainaru writes in a gripping, must-read account. | | |
The world may never know if there are or aren’t cell-phone bomb jammers out there, but DefenseTech has stumbled on a patent that may shed light on the subject:
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